Healthcare providers are constantly faced with the problem of diagnosing and treating patients suffering from varying levels of pain. Difficulty in properly diagnosing and treating the varying levels of pain results from the patients' inability to accurately describe the pain that they are experiencing. The lack of a uniform system for the patients to use in describing the pain often presents a healthcare provider with very different descriptions for the same levels of pain. These different descriptions sometimes result in ineffective, inadequate or excessive treatments. In addition, the lack of a uniform system for the patients to use in describing their pain results in an inaccurate medical record and an inability to describe the pain and course of treatment accurately for insurance providers.
Traditionally, healthcare providers have used varying devices/methods for measuring the amount and/or intensity of pain that a patient is suffering. The predominant device/method has been categorical pain descriptors, both verbal and/or numerical (i.e. none, mild, moderate, and severe; or 0 through 3). Other devices/methods have employed visual analog scales (VAS) displaying a scale bearing the same or similar verbal and/or numerical categorical pain descriptors. In using either of these devices/methods the healthcare provider asks the patient to describe the pain using the categorical descriptors by presenting the categories to the patient either through oral description or by VAS.
By virtue of the categorical limitations inherent in these devices/methods, a healthcare provider inevitably encounters varying descriptions of the same levels of pain intensity from patient to patient. In the above methods, the categorical descriptors presented by a health care provider may influence a patient. The health care profession is constantly looking for new and better methods to properly diagnose the amount and intensity of pain that a patient is experiencing.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved device by which a health care professional can diagnose the amount and intensity of pain that a patient is experiencing.
It is another object of this invention to provide an improved method by which the health care profession can diagnose the amount and intensity of pain that a patient is experiencing.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a device that can diagnose the amount of pain that a patient is experiencing without suggesting categorical descriptors to the patient that can influence the patient's disclosure.
It is still a further object of this invention to provide a device by which a health care provider can more accurately diagnose the amount and intensity of pain that a patient is experiencing for a more complete and accurate medical record.